


a blip in time (we had forever)

by someawkwardprose



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Children of Earth Compliant, Ianto Jones Needs a Hug, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Not A Fix-It, Time Travel, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26712370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someawkwardprose/pseuds/someawkwardprose
Summary: Jack visits, sometimes. It's how Ianto knows he's going to die.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 47
Kudos: 152





	a blip in time (we had forever)

**Author's Note:**

> the time travellers wife but make it janto. or I just went batshit on my phone at two am. the only one who's had a look over it is me, so there's probably mistakes, and I haven't really edited it from the first draft. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I'm,,,,sorry?

Jack visits, sometimes. 

It's not his Jack, Ianto knows. His Jack's eyes are older and sadder than they should be, of course, but the eyes on this Jack's face are far, _far_ older and sadder than those. They are the kind of sad that comes after anger, when the fury seeps away and leaves you cold and empty and unrighteous. 

(but the eyes still belong to Jack, and so, Ianto lets him in)

***

The first time it happens is when Ianto is on enforced leave, after Lisa. It’s not the Jack he took a swing at two weeks ago, he knows instinctively, even though Ianto is...not at his best. The Jack that is his boss, is _only_ his boss, doesn’t hide the disappointment and betrayal he feels, even as he forces Ianto to stay alive when all he wants to do is follow Lisa. That Jack stole Ianto’s razors, and ordered him to eat when he left, and made Ianto call him once a day. He’s threatened to force feed Ianto, or have him institutionalised, and Ianto thinks he’s got bugs in his flat so even if he had the energy, Jack would know he was trying to kill himself. 

This Jack, who breaks in when he’s at his lowest point, when Ianto is sitting on the floor surrounded by shards of glass from a dropped glass, and is almost but not quite considering using them - this Jack just gently urges Ianto into the shower, and doesn’t say anything about the the way his hands flexed.

Ianto knows he’s not the same Jack that emptied his medicine cabinet and threw out all the cleaning products. When he gets out of the shower, the shattered glass, and the debris of two weeks has been cleared away. A plain t-shirt and jogging bottoms have been laid out on his newly made bed, and the whole flat seems cleaner. Ianto hates to admit that it does make him feel better.

“I’ve made soup,” Jack says, when Ianto finally sees him standing by the stove. “Vegetable. You never eat enough veggies.” 

“You cooked,” he manages, and even he is aware of how dull his voice is. 

“I’m fairly good at it, I just never get the time,” Jack says, tactfully ignoring how bad Ianto must look and sound. “Although, it’s been a while since I’ve cooked with only my army knife on hand.” 

There’s lines under Jack’s eyes, around his mouth. A hint of grey at his temples. He looks at Ianto like he means something, and Ianto doesn’t know what to do with that. 

“You took all mine,” Ianto says, shuffling into the room. “Said I couldn’t be trusted.” 

Jack winces, but nods. “Yes. I remember.” 

“Suzie won the bet,” he says, and sits down at the kitchen island. 

“Oh?” 

“Time traveller.” 

“She was always too clever for her own good,” Jack says, but it’s fond, no longer tinged with grief and betrayal. “What was your bet?” 

“C.I.A.” 

“Too many spy novels,” he slid a steaming mug over to Ianto. Ianto doesn’t even question how Jack knows he prefers to drink his soup than use a spoon, despite his general fussiness. “Although, I did have a fling with an operative once. Too fond of poisons, and _way_ too concerned about communism.”

Ianto has questions, like _how long has it been for you, how do you ever forgive me,_ and _why are you here_ , but he doesn’t know how to ask, and he doesn’t have the energy to care. 

“I’m sorry,” Jack murmurs, taking the stool next to Ianto. “I wanted to come earlier, but you wouldn’t have been able to stand me, and it was hard to avoid myself. I hate knowing you're hurting.”

“Why’d you care?” Ianto asks numbly. His fingers are cold, and he flexes them around the mug. 

Jack exhales loudly. “I care about you now. The me that’s in the Hub. He’s bad at showing it, and he’s letting his own feelings get in the way, but he cares.” 

Ianto takes a sip. The broth is good. 

“I care,” Jack whispers, like it’s a secret, and his leg presses against Ianto’s. “It’s going to get better, Yan. I promise.” 

“I don’t believe you,” Ianto says. 

“I know. But it will.” 

This Jack stays for three days. When Ianto remembers to ask about the listening devices, Jack smirks and says he’s taken care of it. When he finally leaves, he whispers something in a language Ianto’s never heard, then presses his lips against Ianto’s forehead.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it. But you’ll be happy again, one day,” he murmurs. “I promise.”

When his Jack, his boss, comes round again, eyes a little wild and panicked because he finally realises that the bugs are on a loop, Ianto is fully dressed for the first time in weeks, has eaten breakfast, and has finally turned his coffee machine back on. His Jack stays for a cup, and watches him carefully, face unreadable. Ianto doesn’t tell him what’s changed, but he finally lets go of the anger, and focuses on the future. He has one now, apparently, and that’s all there is to it. 

***

He doesn’t see another Jack until after he starts sleeping with his boss.

There’s no reason he should let him into his flat, into his bed; he hasn’t even had the current Jack into his room. It’s nothing, purely physical, even if sometimes he wishes it wasn’t, even if sometimes Jack watches him with that unreadable look. What they have is a cautious friendship and casual stress relief. 

This Jack knocks on his door, minutes after Ianto made it home after leaving his own Jack for the night, and Ianto should have just closed it in his face, should have gone to bed alone because he had to be up in seven hours and didn’t have time for whatever this was. 

He sees Jack’s pleading eyes, and finds he can’t say no.

***

These Jack's, they only arrive when his Jack is gone; once to U.N.I.T. conference (three Jack's, that week, and wasn’t that exhausting), once to meet the Queen (only the one Jack, but he made it _count_ ), and sometimes just when Jack is out on a case and will only be an hour or two. 

_“Fuck,”_ Jack pulls his hair. “I’d forgotten -” 

Ianto hums around his mouthful, and projects smugness back at the man under him. 

“-That you were so cocky,” Jack growls, and somehow flips them over, so Ianto is on his back and Jack is hovering over him, with a grin on his face. 

They make those hours count, too. 

(and if part of Ianto is caught on that word - _forgotten_ \- well, who can blame him?)

***

Tosh and Jack get caught in the past, and everything goes to shit. Jack dies, then comes back, and before Ianto can process that, he kisses him, and it feels like everything is sliding into place. 

Then Jack is gone, and Ianto is alone. 

Not for long, though. 

The Jack that arrives on his doorstep looks exhausted. Shattered. Ianto’s afraid that if he touches him, Jack will fall apart, and Ianto will cut himself on all of his sharp pieces, like the glass he dropped months ago. 

“We have four months,” he whispers against Ianto’s lips, desperate. “I’ll be back in four months.” 

“I’m pissed at you,” Ianto hisses back, nipping his bottom lip. 

“I know,” Jack cups his face, gently, and looks into his eyes. “Please. I…” 

“Immortal. Really?” 

Jack smiles, but there’s no mirth in it. “Yeah.” 

There’s so much loaded in that word. Jack looks hunted, haunted, and he watches Ianto like a hawk, like he might disappear the second Jack glances away, and somehow, it makes it so much worse. This Jack doesn’t look that much older than his Jack, and even though he knows now, he knows he doesn’t age - something in Ianto’s stomach twists. He pushes it down mercilessly. 

“Four months. Okay. I hope you brought money, if you’re staying here, because I can’t afford that much lube.” 

There’s a grin, and it’s fake but close enough to real that Ianto will take it, and he lets Jack into his bedroom and life. 

***

"I need, I need you to say it," Jack pants into his collarbone, biting down. "Please, Yan, I need to hear -" 

"I love you," he cries out, because it's ripped out of him, the dirty little secret: he's loved Jack since Jack asked him to stay, to not take the Retcon. He thinks he's loved him forever, like he was born with a Jack Harkness shaped place in his heart. Even as he'd hated him, he'd loved Jack. "I love you, I love you, Jack, I love-"

"Fuck," Jack gasps, like it hurts, like its killing him, and pulls himself up to kiss him. "Fuck, please, I-" 

"I love you," he breathes into Jack's lips. "Jack, I love you." 

***

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Jack says, as he looks at his wrist strap. 

“You’re leaving, then,” Ianto manages. Four months, and it hasn’t been easy by far, but it’s been _good_ , and he hates that he knows that it’s going back to where it used to be, back to being a satellite in Jack’s orbit, not - this. Not an equal.

Yesterday morning, Ianto had taken a morning off with Gwen’s approval (she's let them all take more time off, even with a man down, because that's just who she is as a person). Jack had wrapped his arms around Ianto as he’d done the breakfast dishes. He’d tucked his chin over Ianto’s shoulder, rubbed his cheek against Ianto’s. When Ianto was done, he’d tried to pull away, only for Jack to cling tighter, and his touch said all the words Jack couldn’t seem to get out. 

“I’ll be here,” Jack says. 

“It’s not the same.” 

Jack pulls him close, holding Ianto like he never wants to let go. “Give me time. I - I’ll mess up, and you’ll hate me sometimes, but I swear, one day I’ll get there. I, I-” 

“I know,” Ianto says, brushing their lips together. Jack can’t say it. Ianto can’t either, unless it’s in the dead of night, under the covers, Jack’s skin on his. That doesn’t mean they don’t feel it. 

“I will miss you, Ianto Jones,” Jack whispers. “You have no idea how much. I’m so sorry.”

(somewhere, in the back of Ianto’s mind, a clock starts ticking)

***

Jack leaves. Jack comes back. It’s his Jack, but not really, because his Jack left him with a love bite on his hip bone and memories of dancing in their underwear to Edith Piaf at two am. His Jack was in love with him, he knows.

This Jack, the first Jack, asks him out on a date in an office block. 

“Is that a yes?” 

He thinks about the Jack who stayed in his flat for eleven weeks, who bought takeout and kissed him sweetly and never wanted to leave even though it would fuck with the time stream irrevocably. _Give me time._

This is his Jack, too.

“Yes.” 

***

Some nights, Ianto spots a Jack waiting for him, somewhere: at Ianto’s favoured cafe on the Plass, by the pub the team frequent, inside his car that he always parks in the CCTV blind spot. Those are the nights Ianto pretends he wants to spend alone. His Jack doesn't mind, not at first, but slowly, as their relationship changes and evolves, he begins to look hurt, then worried, then lost as he sits alone in the Hub as Ianto packs up to leave. Ianto kisses him very softly as he goes, because this is his Jack, and he is Ianto's priority. Always. But those other Jack's... they're his too, in a way. Because they come back for him, again and again and again. Because they never forget him. 

The fact the visits are so close, the fact that the Jack's get more and more desperate each time; that tells him something. 

The next night, he takes his Jack to bed, and tries not to think. 

*** 

Ianto isn't quite asleep, but he's close to. This Jack - eight hundred years old, he's aging, slowly - had been rough and forceful right up until he'd looked into Ianto's eyes, and then the gentleness was tempered by desperation, kisses that hurt not from teeth but from the grief they tasted like. Ianto's rung out and aching. He's come more times than he can count, and he’s pissed at the Jack in the Hub, who’d blown their cover because Ianto was threatened, but didn’t even ask if he was alright after.

Lips drift across his shoulders, hands trace his sides, and something wet and warm falls on his neck. 

"Faces, names, events, they all blur together," Jack whispers. "You forget, eventually. You forget your child's first words. The first person you said I love you to. But you -" 

Jack's voice hitches. "No matter how hard I tried, I never forgot you." 

There's a comfort in that, he thinks, the next day, the old Jack long gone and his Jack distracted by Gwen.

"I remember you, Ianto Jones."

***

Owen dies, and comes back, and everything goes to shit, and then they lose him again, for a final time, him and Tosh, and Ianto can barely breathe through the ache in his chest. He loved them, deeply, in a way he’d never connected with Rhiannon, they understood him, and they were _gone -_

Jack’s kisses are frantic, and Ianto knows, knows it’s hitting him, he’s lost two of them. Knows he’s thinking, _how long until I lose you too?_

(that night is the first time he looks into his own Jack’s eyes, and realises this Jack loves him)

***

_\- Jack is stealing sips of his coffee, his arm slung over Ianto’s shoulders as they watch Gwen and Rhys throw flour at each other like big kids, and they glance at each other, smiling -_

_\- Ianto doesn’t even notice they’re holding hands in the cinema until Jack brings his up to brush a kiss over his knuckles -_

_\- Jack always looks impossibly fond when Ianto frowns at his belly, when Ianto tells him off for cooking too much, and he always looks proud of himself when he runs a hand down Ianto’s flank, his once sharply defined ribs hidden -_

(he’s had this before, four months of it. Ianto wishes it could last forever)

***

"Somethings bothering you," Jack says, and Ianto doesn't lie to him, not anymore. He doesn't tell him things, but only because there are some things Jack doesn't need to know. Things like how the last Jack who visited begged Ianto to leave Torchwood, leave Cardiff, leave him. Things like how each and every Jack looked more desperate, more dangerous than the last. 

"Yes," he says, because he doesn't lie to Jack. "But I don't know what's wrong." 

He will die, soon. He knows it in his bones. He even knows why: he is Torchwood, and he is Jack's lover. What he doesn't know is how. 

He can't leave Torchwood, and he can't leave Jack. He knows by making that choice, he's signing his own death warrant. 

Ianto doesn't want to die, because he's young. He's got so much left to give. He doesn't want to go into the dark. He doesn't want to leave Jack alone. 

"You'll tell me," Jack asks. "When you work it out?" 

"Yes," he nods, and tangles their fingers together. 

He doesn't lie. He doesn't want to die. 

(he’s just come to terms with the fact he will, and there's nothing Jack can do to change that)

***

When he walks into Thames House, he knows he won't be walking back out. 

The Jack he saw yesterday, the Jack who stopped him on his way back to the temporary base, was impossibly old, barely recognisable as human. But he was Jack, and he was beautiful, and Ianto knew him immediately. 

_Ianto,_ he heard, but Jack's lips didn't move. _Ianto._

"Hello," he put the shopping down. Jack didn't move, didn't pull him closer with the desperation he normally did. There was an acceptance. He knew he couldn’t change what happened. Couldn’t change Ianto’s mind.

"This is it, then," he murmured.

_You were always so brave. Too brave._

Ianto smiled sadly, and took the steps forward himself. "I learned from the best." 

_"I love you,"_ Jack said, aloud and in his head. _I never stop. I never will stop._

He linked his fingers with Jack's, and rested their foreheads together. "I love you," he said back, and for the first time, it was easy. It didn't hurt.

So he walks into Thames House, and he knows he won't walk back out. 

(and he takes his last, gasping breaths, in Jack’s arms, and says what he’s felt since before Jack came back. Jack can’t say it back)

***

(six months later, his vortex manipulator is fixed, and Jack goes back to the day he disappeared)

***

(happy endings really depend on what order you tell the story in)

**Author's Note:**

> there might be a sequel. haven't decided yet.


End file.
